The Assassin Who refused to Kill me

chapter 2

Soren’s POV

I couldn’t sleep. Not at all. Every time I closed my eyes, the same words played in my head. They didn't get softer or fade away. They were just as clear as when I first heard them, as if the house itself had learned them by heart and was determined to keep repeating them until I couldn't take it anymore.

Your mother should never have been in that room.

She wasn’t supposed to find out.

There was only one thing left to do.

I sat on the edge of my bed for hours, just staring. My hands rested in my lap, like I’d forgotten what they were for. The room was too quiet, too still. It felt like it was holding its breath, waiting for something that wasn’t coming.

I tried to lie down once. It lasted less than a minute. The second my head hit the pillow, the memory hit me harder. It was so sharp, so clear, it filled my head until I couldn’t breathe right. I sat up again, rubbing my face with my hand, wishing I could wipe it away. But it wouldn’t go. Nothing would.

The hours crawled by, one after another, with no real meaning. At some point, I got up and walked to the window. I pulled the curtain back just a little to look outside. The lights along the garden paths made long shadows on the ground. The place I knew so well looked different somehow, like I was seeing it for the very first time.

I wondered how long things had been like this. How long things had been happening under the surface while I just went about my day, not noticing. Or maybe I *had* noticed. Maybe I just didn’t want to understand.

I let the curtain fall back and stepped away. My chest felt tight again as the quiet pressed in on me. There were so many things I could have done. So many ways I could have reacted. I could have talked to my father. I could have gone to someone else in the house, tried to find something to make it feel less real.

But none of that felt possible. There was no one I could go to. No one I could trust.

By the time the sky started to get light, a soft gray peeking through the edges of the curtains, I knew something else for sure. I wasn’t safe.

The thought didn’t scare me in a rush. It didn’t overwhelm me. It just settled in, calm and quiet, like it had always been there, waiting for me to finally see it.

Lucien had seen me.

That was enough. I didn’t need him to say anything to know what that meant. I didn’t need an explanation or a warning. The look in his eyes told me everything.

I stood there for a long time after that, letting that thought sink in completely, until there was nothing left to wonder about.

The house felt different when the day started. It looked the same. The same walls, the same furniture, the same staff walking quietly through the halls. But something deep down had changed, something I couldn’t ignore, no matter how hard I tried to act like everything was normal.

Every look from someone felt heavier. Every quiet moment stretched out too long. I stayed away from the main rooms as much as I could, sticking to the quieter parts of the house where I was less likely to see anyone. When I did pass someone, I kept my eyes down, my face blank, not showing anything.

If they noticed anything, they didn’t say it. Or maybe they already knew. That thought stayed with me longer than I wanted it to.

I didn’t leave my room until late morning, and I didn’t go far. I walked through the upstairs hall, stopping sometimes by the windows, pretending to look outside while my mind was stuck somewhere else entirely.

I found myself near the study at one point. I didn’t mean to go there. My steps got slower as I got closer, my eyes landing on the door without me really thinking about it. It looked the same as always. Closed. Ordinary. Like it just held papers and decisions and the usual stuff of running the house.

But I knew better now.

I made myself keep walking. I didn’t stop until I was back in my room, the door clicking shut behind me. The sound felt louder than it should have.

The hours went by slowly after that. Too slowly. By the time afternoon came, the worry had become a constant thing, sitting just under everything I did. I tried to keep busy, tried to think about anything other than what was coming next, but it didn’t work. Nothing held my attention for long.

The knock never came. That was what made it worse.

When the door finally opened, it happened without any warning. No sound. No pause. It swung open as if it was always meant to, and he stepped inside like he belonged there.

Lucien didn’t hurry. He didn’t look around the room or stop at the doorway. He moved with the same quiet confidence he always had, that steady way about him that made him seem untouchable. For the first time, I saw him clearly. Not as my brother. As something else.

We stood there for a moment, the space between us filled with everything that hadn’t been said. I didn’t try to pretend I didn’t know why he was there. It was no use.

He closed the door behind him, the soft click sounding in the quiet.

“You shouldn’t have been there,” he said.

His voice was calm. That made it worse. There was no anger in it, no upset. Just a simple statement, like it was already decided.

“I didn’t mean to,” I answered. The words felt weak the second I spoke them. They didn’t sound like enough. They didn’t feel like they could change what had already happened.

He didn’t look away.

“It doesn’t matter.”

The finality in his voice settled heavily between us. That was when it truly hit me. There was no fixing this. No explaining it away.

I felt tears come again before I could stop them. The pressure in my chest grew until it spilled out. My vision blurred as I tried to hold myself together.

“She knew,” I said, my voice breaking even though I tried to stop it. “That’s why you—” The words got stuck in my throat. I couldn’t finish them. I didn’t need to.

“Yes,” he said. Just like that. No pause. No trying to make it sound better.

My breath hitched. Something inside me broke in a way I couldn’t control. I turned away from him, putting my hand over my face as the tears fell harder. My shoulders shook with how hard I was crying. I didn’t care how I looked. I didn’t care about anything anymore.

“She was our mother,” I managed, the words coming out uneven, barely holding together.

The silence behind me lasted. For a second, I thought he might say something else, something that would make it feel less like the end, less absolute. He didn’t.

When he spoke again, his voice hadn’t changed.

“And now you know what happens to people who see things they shouldn’t.”

The words sank into me slowly. I didn’t react right away. I didn’t need to. I understood them. I knew exactly what he was saying without him needing to explain it more.

A strange sound came out of me then, something like a laugh but not quite right. It came out broken, just like everything else.

“Then just do it,” I said. I turned back to face him. My vision was blurry, but my meaning was clear. “I don’t care.”

That was the truth. Whatever came next didn’t scare me anymore. Not after that.

He watched me for a long moment. There was something in his expression then, something I couldn’t quite figure out. It disappeared quickly, going back to the same calm look he’d had since he walked in.

“Not here,” he said.

The words felt heavier than they should have. He turned after that, moving toward the door without waiting for me to reply. His hand rested on the handle for just a second before he opened it, the light from the hall spilling into the room again.

He paused for just a second, his back still to me.

Then he stepped out.

The door closed behind him with a quiet, final sound.

I stood there for a long time after he left, staring at the spot where he had been. The weight of what had just happened settled fully into place.

He hadn’t said no. He hadn’t tried to explain it away. He hadn’t given me anything to hold onto. And more than that, he hadn’t argued when I told him to end it.

The realization came slowly, but once it did, it stayed. This wasn’t something that might happen. It was something that would. The only thing left was the time.

I walked back toward the bed eventually, my legs feeling shaky as I sat down again. My hands rested loosely at my sides. The room felt smaller now, the walls closing in a little as the quiet returned.

I let my head fall forward, my eyes unfocused as my thoughts kept going around and around to the same place. It wasn’t a question of ‘if’ anymore. Just ‘when’.